How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl, and the Roads Not Taken Book

At the core of Alex Marshall's "How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl and the Roads Not Taken" is a simple formula: cities create wealth and jobs, transportation determines the size and shape of cities, and government determines (or should determine) transportation policies. This is, presumably, how cities are supposed to work - it's largely how they used to work.

Throughout history, cities tended to be denser and less spread-out largely because that was model required by past transportation infrastructure. In the 19th century, people's ability to travel was limited to how far they (or their horses) could walk. Then came trains, which connected cities to one another and created both residential and retail density within proximity to train stations. Subway systems created similar pockets of density at each stop along a given line.

Cars changed the way we get from points A to B, certainly, but they fundamentally changed the layout and economy of our cities, as well. Marshall describes the post-automobile and, specifically, the post-Interstate Highway System American city:

"It was not until the introduction of the raised, limited-access freeway after World War II that the era of place, of urbanity and cities, was truly swept away. An interstate highway is incompatible with any form of street-based activity."

He goes on to say that cities are now "centrifugal…more akin to a giant salad spinner, spraying growth out over the countryside indiscriminately. Growth still clusters around transportation sources, except that it is now the freeway off-ramp rather than the subway stop or train station. But the growth circle of a streetcar is measured in blocks…the growth circle of a freeway off-ramp is measured in miles."

So? Is this not simply the evolution of transportation and urban planning? Why should anyone care that cities are laid out differently than they were at the turn of the 20th century? Well, Alex Marshall wrote this book hoping you'd ask that question.

Marshall advocates for denser, more compact cities with robust public transportation systems, less reliance upon cars, and more efficient land use. He believes that cities built in this way make more sense, period - but specifically from an economic and environmental perspective. To underscore this point, he examines several neighborhoods, towns and cities that he believes represent his ideals (to some degree) and contrasts them with communities that do not.

For example, he lauds Portland, Ore., and its controversial urban growth boundary. Established in the 1970s, the boundary limits developer's ability to snap up thousands of acres of land on the periphery of Oregon's cities with the intention of constructing subdivisions and other suburban enclaves. Instead, builders are forced back toward the city center, making use of existing space and open land. Not only does this create stronger neighborhoods, argues Marshall, but it also saves public money by encouraging development on land that already has the infrastructure necessary to support residency (sewer and water lines, sidewalks, streets, etc.) It also creates residential density, which benefits Portland's growing transit system. At least partially as a result of the UGB, Portland's downtown core started thriving long before other cities got on the revitalization bandwagon.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Celebration, Fla., a town created by the Walt Disney Company a couple decades ago. A pure example of "New Urbanism," a theory that Marshall openly loathes, Celebration created a bucolic small town from scratch - town hall, center square, houses with wrap-around front porches, kids riding bicycles with baskets attached to the handlebars…the whole works. What Disney didn't do was build retail options that average citizens of Celebration need to sustain daily life. Celebrationites can walk "downtown" to get a fancy meal, but they have to drive out to Walmart to find a roll of toilet paper. That is one of countless examples of how Celebration has become anything but the Most Magical Place on Earth.

Ironically, Celebration was at least partially modeled on the town of Kissimmee, which is just next door and which sports an urban core in rapid decay. To quote Marshall: "Kissimmee has everything Celebration does, except more so…a central, but larger, main street with more stores that you can walk to…a beautiful and larger lake to walk around, with a well-designed and urbanistically appropriate park…fine old homes…a brand-new library…accompanying civic center…an Amtrak rail stop."

And yet, though Celebration is but a cheap imitation of Kissimmee, the imitation is outperforming the original, economically speaking. This obviously makes no sense.

You get the idea. In order for cities to reach their full potential, they need to be designed in a smarter way - i.e., with an eye toward density and public transportation and by making use of smart, regional government planning. I don't disagree with that. Nor do I disagree with cities establishing and enforcing an urban growth boundary - although, for most large cities in the United States currently, that toothpaste is already out of that tube.

Speaking of, that's one of my primary gripes about this book. First, what few solutions Marshall offers to the problem of cities not working very well are mostly infeasible or unattainable within the American political framework.

He advocates for urban growth boundaries - which are laudable, but only really work for cities that are on the front-end of a big growth spurt. Let's say, Chattanooga, Tenn., for example. But what about Atlanta, or Boston, or my home of Dallas? Once the city has expanded into the neighboring county's neighboring county…how much good is an urban growth boundary going to do?

He also advocates for a "$2 to $3 tax on a gallon of gasoline" which would "push people out of their cars and densify communities." Would it? Perhaps. But would it also be a regressive tax on the poor who are forced to live in the suburbs and exurbs because the cost of housing in the urban core is too high for them to afford? Absolutely. Google any of the dozens of thinkpieces that have been written about the commuting nightmare that Atlanta's suburban poor have to live each day. The gas tax needs to be raised to keep up with inflation and our dire infrastructure needs. But $3? Good luck with that.

Marshall advocates for more mass transit spending - which I'm all for. But streetcars - which get a lot of mention in this book - have suddenly sprung up in cities nationwide over the past decade and few of them have reached the potential they promised. The future of mass transit appears to be a combination of dense light rail in the urban core fed by spokes of suburban rail lines, bus rapid transit and driverless ride-sharing - not subways and streetcars.

Overall, I felt somewhat the same way about this book as I did Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death" which, incidentally, is referenced in Marshall's book. I largely agree with the arguments presented - but fussing about problems while offering politically infeasible solutions is just screaming into the void. What good is it? Come back to me when you can offer a way forward that is doable and sensible.

Finally, I would be doing you a disservice by not pointing out three jaw-dropping paragraphs that shine a light on the author's personal prejudices.

In his chapter on Portland, Marshall opens with a photo he took while riding one of the city's MAX light rail trains. In the photo cutline he asks the reader to "notice the low numbers of African-Americans" - a strange notation, to say the least. Indeed, the photo shows a train car full of mostly white passengers.

Later in the chapter, he provides context for his cutline:

"I rode the light rail lines and buses while I was in Portland. I saw cars crowded with all types of people, leaning toward the working class but also with wealthy or better-off folks in nice suits and dresses. … Then, I counted the black people. Usually one or two would be the most I would come up with. For most white people, including me, I'm sorry to say, being part of the whole is easier when it's not mostly black or brown, particularly poor black and brown. It's easy to be tolerant and progressive where there aren't that many poor racial minorities to be tolerant of."

You can draw your own conclusions - but I wouldn't have included the excerpt if I didn't think that this is a blatantly racist and disgusting statement, one that is begging for an explanation and an apology.

Marshall wraps up his startling chapter with a truly perplexing description of hip urban neighborhoods - featuring a cringe-worthy string of "article-izations."

"Many metropolitan areas…have at least one lively neighborhood where the gays, the artists, the lawyers, the journalists and other urbanites can make a place for themselves."

As a former journalist, I consider this breaking news. The average the journalist, the artist, and the gay couldn't possibly afford to live in the average the lawyer's neighborhood.

One star - for stretching a 10,000-word thinkpiece across 214 pages, for bitching, for offering generally infeasible solutions to our urban problems, for perplexingly racist observations, and for suggesting co-mingling between journalists and lawyers.